Wikipedia talk:Harassment/Archive 1

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Older discussion can be found here.

What about the false accusation of a threat? Or of bullying? wikinerd and lifeisunfair have each accused Admins of "bullying" or "threatening" because the admins were attempting to enforce project rules. I think that these accusations constitute harassment. Should an RFC be made? Uncle Ed 01:19, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, go ahead and make the RFC's against them. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 18:22, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I just stumbled upon the above post. For the record, this is discussion to which Ed referred. As is patently obvious, he was attempting to enforce nonexistent project rules, and was threatening to block another user (Wikinerd) for perceived violations thereof. I merely noted this fact (and Wikinerd agreed). Evidently, Ed believes that questioning the judgement of a "senior admin" constitutes harassment. —Lifeisunfair 00:26, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

underwhelmed

I am underwhelmed. FuelWagon 04:51, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Following an editor to another article

Also known (in extreme cases) as Wiki-Stalking

"Wikistalking" will be an easy accusation to make and an almost impossible thing to easily defend yourself against, even if you're innocent. There is no objective, straightforward way to disprove you aren't "stalking" someone just because you edited the same pages as he did. FuelWagon 04:51, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Targeted personal attacks

Not all personal attacks are harassment, but when an editor engages in repeated personal attacks on a particular edit or group of editors, that's another matter.

Say what? How is this different than "personal attacks"? FuelWagon 04:51, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Threats

Including Legal threats.

Isn't this already covered by policy? FuelWagon 04:51, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Posting of personal information

Sure, fine. Call that the "No Personal Information" policy, not harrassment. FuelWagon 04:51, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Other disruption

This is the main source of my underwhelming response. This is so vague as to be useless to real editors and a dangerous weapon to people looking to game the system. FuelWagon 04:51, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Just another way for editors to, ironically, harass one another. There's a set of editors who do see each other on the same pages. Now, if one of them's an admin, you get your arse banned for disagreeing with them on more than one page. More instruction creep. More empowerment for those who prefer being a mini copper to being a useful editor. -- Grace Note

Not again please

Please merge this with Wikipedia:Stalking so that we don't have to repeat the discussion again. To reiterate, stalking is usually used as a synonym for reading through other people's contribution logs, and there is nothing wrong with that. If you don't want people to read your contribs, don't make any. If you don't want people to criticize you, don't make mistakes. R adiant _>|< 07:55, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Right. This is like the attempt to redefine "threatening" so that it includes analyzing a user's contributions and considering whether to block them for violating policy. The trick is that the one following and enforcing policy is cast as making an even worse violation! (Because "threats" are an absolute, clear-cut violation: grounds for an instant, permanent ban.)

So I oppose any re-definition of Wikipedia's civility policy (see Wikipedia:Civility) which undermines the ability of sysops to enforce Wikipedia policy.

This is supposed to be a project to produce a free encyclopedia. Everyone is supposed to be donating text - with no strings attached. All you get for your donation is a one-line acknowledgement in the article history. After that, you do not own your contribution. It is the mutual property of everyone in the world. You have no more or less rights over it than anyone else: to copy, modify, or distribute it (for "free as in beer" or for profit).

That is the only business of Wikipedia and of its policy pages. Now, if someone is violating our civility policies, creating a hostile atmosphere which discourages contributions of free text, then such a person should be made to stop their violations. Polite encouragement to adhere to policy has proven to work best, but in extreme cases they need to be excluded from the project (for a time, perhaps, but sometimes indefinitely).

Some people, however, are into "Wikipedia:gaming the system". They try to use complex rules and procedures to defeat the very purpose for which Wikipedia exists. They even claim a "right" to do this!!

They have no such right.

Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy. Only those who continue to demonstrate that they are contributing to the fulfillment of project goals are permitted to remain users of this web site. And that goal is rather simple and quite easy to grasp: the organization and presentation of the world's knowledge.

Anyone who opposes or undermines this goal MUST be shown to the door. Uncle Ed 13:25, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with every word above by Radiant and Ed. Except better than merge, let's be bold and delete both proposals;) WAS 4.250 17:38, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Do what you like

To people considering adding to this: Go nuts; do whatever you feel is appropriate. Just so long as you can point to solid policy concerns or precedents, and Assume good faith. Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 06:20, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

User:KingOfAllPaperboys

One of the important items I'd like to have here is cites in the precedents section; thus, my naming of KOAP, so that other users can see his behavior. If there exists a better refrence page to explain his ban then his user talk page, please, let me know. The case is, after all, an excelent illustration how harassment can be an aggravating factor, and only used as such. Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 03:44, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I've rephrased things slightly, but left in a link to KOAP's talk page. If you feel it nessisary to remove him from the main article, at least leave a link in the comments so that those who don't know the history of the case can study the situation in question. Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 03:49, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

User:Sultan_of_smoov

So, perhaps I have another example of this. Yesterday I reverted edits by this user to the Case Western Reserve University page and left a vandalism warning on his talk page. Then he came back and made edits like this ([1]) and this (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tanggula_Mountain_Pass&oldid=21758663) to pages that I had just written about on my user page. He was introducing inaccurate information into those pages. I suspect he was following me to pages I had recently written about editing, and harrassing me in retaliation for his vandalism warning.

What is the procedure I would follow to assert that he is Wikistalking me, according to this proposal? (I realize that this is still in development.) Mamawrites 04:19, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Every contribution this person made that I looked at [2] was vandalism. Ignore the "stalking" assertion, and deal with the vandalism. WAS 4.250 05:45, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I'd agree. Every edit in the user history looks like vandalism. When you see vandalism, report it here. (clicking that may take a second or two to get you there) FuelWagon 01:51, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I did that (on the current alerts: RU: low page) at 04:28, 25 August 2005. Because the user who tagged his talk page for vandalism after me didn't give the 4th warning, he didn't actually get blocked, though. He hasn't been back (yet). Mamawrites 04:41, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Sensitive information

I am new to this discussion, but does anyone know if the topic of posting sensitive information has been covered? Simply editing the article will not do, as the information exists in the history. Who can delete history entries? I am talking about something that is internal discussion, or perhaps someone who knows way* too much info about a person and has an ulterior motive. Gchriss 04:26, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

There has been some discussion of that topic at wikipedia:no personal attacks. It could be stated more clearly in the policy, so I wasked about it. I believe the consensus was that revealing truly private information may be a personal attack, particularly if done with intent to harass. For some editors the it could become almost like blackmail, and very hard to remedy without drawing attention to the very information which is private. As a counter-example, I should note that we had one subject/editor who loudly insisted that we were publishing private information even though it came from his own, publicly-accessible website. Regardless of occasional false alarms, it is a serious issue and I hope that the language in the "No Personal Attacks" policy is strengthened. -Willmcw 05:27, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

To answer your page histories question - only a devleoper can delete individual versions from the history. While an administrator can delete *all* of them [by deleting the article] only a developer can delete particular versions. And it's a huge pain for them to do it, and they are reluctant to do it because it involves mucking around with sql. →Raul654 05:49, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Can't admins delete the page, then just undelete all but that edit? --Phroziac ^(talk) 23:16, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

No. When undeleting, admins restore all previous edits. →Raul654 03:56, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Here's my question - this article gives no suggestion of what to do to deal with harassment, which is generally okay since most of the issues raised in the article are covered under WP:NPA and can be dealt with accordingly. But what about revealing personally identifying information with the intent to harass or intimidate? Since this has to be dealt with by an admin, shouldn't there be some sort of procedure for reporting this sort of behavior in place where people can find it and use it? I had a user repeatedly posting my full name and text and full headers of emails I'd sent to members-only lists, which is certainly NOT available on the web, and I had a hell of a time figuring out what to do about it since I was (still am) a new Wikipedian and it didn't seem to me like the action itself was technically in violation of any policy. How can we make it easier to get this sort of thing deleted, right away? - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 06:14, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

various revisions

I see this project is being edited in different directions. Two quick points about some version that's in play:

Wikistalking is disruptive when it is used to cause annoyance or distress to another contributor and this is against the rules.

"Against the rules" seems like a unnecessarily definite judgement for a project that does not have "rules".

Stalk puppets are multiple internet identities that stay separate from each other, but that the person behind them acts different on.

"Stalk puppets" is a term that I've never heard of and that gets no Goggle hits. Is this a neologism? -Willmcw 23:34, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Given that the editor who created the "stalk puppets" passage also linked to and created the article Power Word: IRL Name (a phrase which gets only 3 google hits) in the same version, I'd say "Yes, it is a neologism". Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 00:08, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Harassment as ad hominem ad nauseam

A thought: In many ways, WikiNature is opposed to any emphasis of contributor egos or personalities. We do not sign our contributions to articles. There is no byline on Wikipedia articles or Wikinews stories. Unlike Everything2, we do not keep score of how many people like a particular editor's contributions. We tend to eschew the development of idiosyncratic writing styles; editors are encouraged to regularize others' writing to fit the Manual of Style.

There are relatively few spaces in which we emphasize individual views and personalities. The one rare positive way we systematically and procedurally single out editors is the adminship system, where we vote for those people whom we trust to have greater technical powers. We generally reject the idea that this means they are more worthy contributors of encyclopedia material -- rather, we take adminship to usually mean that we trust that they are not going to do something stupid or destructive with those powers. Usually, we single people out when there are negative reasons for doing so, such as an RfC or RfAr.

In other words, in many senses the "ideal Wikipedia" would be one wherein everyone agreed to contribute in as egoless a fashion as possible. This is perhaps only a slight exaggeration of what we mean by NPOV. The NPOV policy means that while we are free to focus our attentions on articles and topics that interest us, we agree to set aside our personal preferences or opinions and contribute text that enhances a neutral description of each subject.

The kinds of behavior that we typify as abusive and harassing are almost always ones which focus upon the personalities and persons of editors themselves. The most general example of this is the no personal attacks policy: when we disapprove of a contribution, we're supposed to direct our disapproval at the text, not at the person. Personal attacks are ad hominem -- literally, against the person.

The kind of conduct which we call harassment is nothing but an exaggeration (almost to the point of self-parody) of ad hominem attack. It goes beyond remarking upon another's personality, to the point of attempting to provoke or harm that person themselves. Harassment is the logical end of the conduct which is (so badly!) described as "POV-pushing". It is the logical opposite of WikiNature.

Thus, perhaps we can deter harassment by deëmphasizing ego and personality throughout Wikipedia. We should perhaps refocus some of the administrative actions so that rather than labeling people as problems, they lock down and address problems with articles. We could discourage the formation of "interest groups", such as WikIProjects which focus upon pushing a particular view about sex or inclusionism or whatever. We could spread out administrative powers more, and discourage the present "thin blue line" attitude in which administrators are sometimes given undue assumption of correctness when in conflict with others.

In short, I suspect that anything we can do to promote a more relaxed and less egotistical WikiNature here, will do a great deal to deter harassment. --FOo 01:04, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Chilling effects of an anti-stalking rule?

"A atom-blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways." I think we need to be careful in the creation of rules which may inhibit useful techniques in removing spam, POV pushing, and vandalism. In the past when I've been editing or RC patroling and run into a clearly bad edit, I usually check the submitters history and clean up all simmlar instances. There have been multiple times where I've encountered longstanding vandalism where a review of the submitters has shown that someone removed the same vandalism performed on a popular article but didn't bother to check the submitters history and clean up the rest. So contribution checking is something we should encourage. Then we come around to SPAM... if someone adds a external of low quality to an article, it is nearly impossible to tell in that one edit if the user is attempting to advertise via Wikipedia or if they just missed the fact that Wikipedia is not a link directory, only by reviewing their contributions can you find that they've submitted 20 externals to the same site to as many articles, and from that point the only sane course of action is to remove all of them.

So, of course, none of these activities would be against a rule which only forbed wikistalking when the individual edits made as a result of the wikistalking are within the rules... But that would make the wikistalking rule pointless, since we would only need such a rule to make forbidden acts which alone would be acceptable.

The problem here is that what we need is a rule that says "wikistalking is permitted unless it is in bad-faith", since there is no simple pattern of edits which would be acceptable alone but are not acceptable togeather. I think that because of this there is no way to create a working anti-stalking rule, because there is no wait to codify the determination of good vs bad faith. As a result the use of such rule will always require good judgement and consideration on the part of Wikipedia editors. ... Which is what we already have without a special rule. The users of Wikipedia always reserve the right to impose sanctions on anyone who we determine as acted against the interest of the project, rules broken or not.

If there is a percieved need for some kind of anti-stalking rule, then perhaps what is really needed is some cleanup and fleshing out of material in Wikipedia:Harassment so that there a nice soundbite for people to wikilink to when they are chastising another user for wikistalking. --Gmaxwell 19:11, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. You have a lot of good points there.

In the two cited cases, the Arbitration Committee has expressed the view that the act of "following someone around" or checking user contributions is not by itself any sort of problem. Indeed, as you note, checking user contributions is an excellent way to follow up on a revert of spam, vanity, or vandalism.

Following only becomes stalking when it's done with ill intent toward the person followed. In Wikipedia terms, I think this means that some other policy violation needs to be involved: personal attacks, vandalism, threats, revert warring, or whatever. The following then becomes an aggravating circumstance.

(As an analogy: Holding a knife in your hand is not a crime; indeed, it's frequently a useful thing to do, for instance to cut food or shrubberies. But if you're holding a knife in your hand while you threaten to attack someone, that can escalate the offense from simple assault to assault with a deadly weapon.)

The stalking element aggravates the basic offense because it represents both a greater disruption to the project, and a greater likelihood that the offender is going to keep disrupting the project. A person who makes one-off personal attacks once in a while is generating less disruption than a person who follows someone around and posts nasty comments about them wherever they edit. Likewise, the former person shows intermittent lapses of judgment, while the latter shows a determined tendency to disrupt: it is likely thus that the latter person will do more damage in the future.

Any person who steers clear of other Wikipedia wrongdoings -- personal attacks, edit warring, and the like -- should not be "chilled" by a rule or policy against stalking. There's a big difference -- and I think any administrator or ArbCom member would agree -- between checking user contributions a few times to revert spam, and following a person around over a course of days to mess with them. --FOo 22:56, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

What I feel about what this policy should achieve.

Discourage people "policing" wikipedia against users who they feel exist to "wreck" the project. (Aka assuming bad faith)
Discourage people alienating a potentialy good user by making their wiki experience miserable.
Promote community spirit rather than individual "poice" units who fells they know best. Not even Jimbo Wales himself makes such desicions even though he is entitled to do so. If there is a problematic user a concensius should be established for him to be pursued.
All policing (reverting bad users edits) should be taken by a number of users (not sockpuppets of course), preferably by admins as admins are expected to know wikipedia policy.
- Revert waring against that user on multiple articles for instance is unacceptable esspecialy if you had no edits prior (pointless too since he will come back and revert).
- I see the recent revert wars I was involved in Southeastern Anatolia Project, Kurdish people as Harassment.
People can and check anothers edit contribs but I feel this should be left to admins. There are over 500 admins, you can msg one and point out a "bad" user. The admin can process this and prompt community action or warn the bad user. If an admin goes evil, he can always be deadmined but odds of that happening are neglegable.

--Cool Cat ^Talk 15:38, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Good edits or wiki-stalking?

(This was originally posted to the main page; I have moved it here, since it appears to have nothing to do with the proposed policy per se. Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 21:56, 16 September 2005 (UTC))

Thank you. I thought I was on the talk page. WAS 4.250 22:38, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

From [3] "# 16:15, 16 September 2005 (hist) (diff) Pornography in Japan (-verify tag) (top)

16:10, 16 September 2005 (hist) (diff) m European pornography (top)
16:09, 16 September 2005 (hist) (diff) m Freedom of speech in the United States (Reverted edits by WAS 4.250 to last version by DESiegel) (top)
16:09, 16 September 2005 (hist) (diff) m Atatürk Dam (Reverted edits by WAS 4.250 to last version by Darwinek) (top)
16:07, 16 September 2005 (hist) (diff) User talk:WAS 4.250 (Genetics) (top)
16:04, 16 September 2005 (hist) (diff) m Transcription (genetics) (Reverted edits by WAS 4.250 to last version by 62.209.237.4) (top)
16:02, 16 September 2005 (hist) (diff) m Operon (Reverted edits by WAS 4.250 to last version by FlaBot) (top)"

Each edit is removing a verify (reference) flag I placed there. This follows his spamming my talk page (I spammed him back) after he deleted a contribution I made that removed part of a contribution by FeloniousMonk to Fine-tuned universe. FeloniousMonk and I have had differences. (See the page where people voted to make FeloniousMonk an admin.) WAS 4.250 21:09, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

The template you are using means you dispute the data. We do not tag every article without referances. --Cool Cat ^Talk 16:07, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Wrong. The issue the flag deals with is VERIFY-ABLILITY not accuracy. Adding the flag causes two things to happen:

The article appears at Category:Articles which lack sources which states Wikipedia articles that are missing citations belong in this category.
This statement is placed where the flag occurs: This article does not cite its references or sources. You can help Wikipedia by including appropriate citations. WAS 4.250 20:11, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Mention that following an editor to correct policy violations is OK, too.

I believe that if this policy goes into effect, the #1 most common invocation of this policy will be by editors who feel the urgent need to insert POV edits into political articles. Let's call them bad editors. These editors will insert POV in such an inappropriate way that other editors — let's call them good editors — will feel compelled to check the edit history to see if similar damage has been done to other political articles. Then, as soon as a good editor removes POV edits from more than one article by the bad editor, the bad editor will cry out "I am being stalked by a liberal/conservative/green/radical/reactionary editor who is persecuting me for my political beliefs" and run to the court to plea for relief under "Harassment".

This harassment policy should state explicitly that the above corrective conduct is OK and is not harassment. It's reasonable to assume you're going to be watched like a hawk (as distasteful as it is to be corrected by people with other political views than you) if you make bad POV edits.

Anyway, this can be made explicit and not implicit by inserting "or violations of Wikipedia policy" in the last line of the wikistalking definition, viz:

This does not include checking up on an editor to fix errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, nor does it mean reading a user's contribution log; those logs are public for good reason. The important part is the disruption - disruption is considered harmful.

I think this will cut down on 'harassment' complaints by 50%.

That said, I'm not happy with the fact that "disruption" isn't defined here, since it's highlighted as the important part of the policy against wikistalking. Can we have a definition? Tempshill 23:07, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Adding the proposed "or violations of Wikipedia policy" sounds good to me. Go for it. Rangerdude 00:22, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Done. Tempshill 22:11, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Stalking and Assume Good Faith

this section was retrieved from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 16:09, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

A recent Arbitration Committee decision adopted as a principle a proposal on stalking. I have added it to Assume Good Faith, as the formulation relates to that guideline, with a view to adopting it as good practice. Future arbitration cases are likely to revisit this principle. Please review and comment, and modify if required. --Tony Sidaway ^Talk 13:11, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, maybe this needs reconsidering:

WP:STALK is now one of the three shortcuts to wikipedia:Assume good faith
wikipedia:stalking redirects to Wikipedia:Harassment (presently only one shortcut: WP:HA)
There is a "wikistalking" section in WP:HA, see Wikipedia:Harassment#Wikistalking
That section lists two "prior" cases involving stalking, so if a third case is mentioned, I'd only do it there (and only if this still learns something new compared to the two mentioned cases)
Could we move on promoting WP:HA from "proposed" to "effective" guideline, I suppose the prior cases suggest the guideline is enforcable?
further, re-redirect WP:STALK to Wikipedia:Harassment, adapting the "shortcut" template on both the "assume good faith" and "harassment" guidelines.
And make links in a "see also" section from WP:FAITH to WP:HA, and the other way around, thus showing the guidelines are related (instead of mentioning "one" of the three stalking cases in WP:FAITH...).

? good idea? --Francis Schonken 14:00, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I hadn't seen WP:HA before. It could do with trimming for readability, but it seems very workmanlike, summarising good precedents. I think the text belongs there and there should probably be a "See also" on WP:FAITH to WP:HA. That the latest principle is an outgrowth of WP:FAITH and WP:CIVIL should also be mentioned at WP:HA. I think most of WP:HA is uncontroversial enough that it would probably be made policy soon. --Tony Sidaway ^Talk 14:17, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Gave partial execution to the points above (while someone had already erased the "Stalk" connections from WP:AGF), please check whether I did a good job! --Francis Schonken 12:08, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Missing info

Is it just me, or is this page missing any suggestions on what to do in case of harrassment? --InShaneee 00:49, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

It's not just you. This page should definitely have instructions for victims of harassment, especially that Template:Pinfo4 warns that those violating the harassment policy can and should be immediately blocked. We need to put our money where our mouth is here. - AdelaMa e ^{(talk - contribs)} 08:27, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Merge

I strongly feel harrasment should be considered as a type of personal attack given one pursuing another is as personal as an attack can get :/ --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 13:22, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

It is possible to harrass without actually engaging in personal attacks. Our personal attack policy (IMHO) is primarily about content: "You're an idiot", "Nazi!", and so on. Harrasment is not, at heart, about content, but rather about a pattern of behavior. The difference is subtle, but very very important. Inclusion of harrasment material in WP:NPA. As it would change the focus of both pages (this page on behavior, NPA on content), I would oppose such a merger. ^Thanks, _{Luc "Somethingorother" French} 01:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Lubaf. It's certainly possible to harass without engaging in personal attacks. Any action taken for the purpose of making it unpleasant for someone to contribute could be harassment. For instance, following someone around and reverting perfectly good contributions would likely be harassment as well as an abuse of reverting. I don't want to enumerate a whole bunch of types of harassment because I don't want to teach abusers how to stick beans up their noses. But if you think about it there are lots of ways of bugging the hell out of someone besides calling them a jerk-off Nazi buttface. --FOo 02:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

FuelWagon maintained that no one of his criticisms of SlimVirgin was a personal attack. That may be true, but his pattern was harassment. This policy should not be merged. It is needed. Robert McClenon 19:19, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Another Precedent

The case of FuelWagon should be added to the list of precedents involving harassment. FuelWagon's pattern of criticism of SlimVirgin for several months after a series of edit wars resulted in a six-month ban. While any one of FuelWagon's criticisms of SlimVirgin might not have been considered a personal attack, the overall pattern was one of harassment. Robert McClenon 19:18, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Is there consensus (except by FuelWagon, who has expressed disagreement to me by email) that his conduct should be listed as an example of harassment? Robert McClenon 21:02, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I have no objection, Robert. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:07, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Very harmful policy

What's not to say that for fear of being accused of stalking, people are effectively scared away from discussion pages where "opponents" are "hanging out" (whose subjects not coincidentally often happens to be part of that person's interests)? Either this policy is redundant in light of other policies and therefore not necessary or opens up a new avenue of Kafkaesque situations (dare I say abuse?) where whoever happens to be the most respected at the moment "wins". The definition of "wiki-stalking" in particular takes the cake in this regard:

The term "wiki-stalking" has been coined to describe following a contributor around the wiki, editing the same articles as the target, with the intent of causing annoyance or distress to another contributor.

So now we're down to looking in somebody's head to determine whether somebody is "intending of causing annoyance or distress to another contributor"? Unless it's even worse and we simply go by the "feelings" of the "plaintiff"! I already accepted that Wikipedia can be a harsh place at some times (see in that regard Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot) and I welcome any proposal that can make this place have a more friendly atmosphere, but I'm not interested in submitting to a tyranny of crybabies at the expense of NPOV considerations, because that's what a person whose only argument is "wiki-stalking", is, a crybaby.

And I don't recall this ever being put up to a consensus vote. It seems more that it's simply "case law" as the result of Arbitration Committee rulings. -- Dissident (Talk) 01:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Harassment definition requirements

Before you change the definition of Harassment, consider the following:

The definition must exclude honest anti-troll work.
The definition needs a mens rea requirement.
The definition must be as clear as possible.

I can explain the reasoning behind each of these, if somebody cares to ask. ^Thanks, _{Luc "Somethingorother" French} 02:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Can you expand on the limits of "honest anti-troll work"? There are a lot of forms of harassment that would still be unacceptable even if someone thought they were doing them to oppose a troll. --FOo 03:22, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Defining the exact line between "honest anti-troll work" and "harassment" is tricky, because the difference is a matter of focus, rather then any one definite act or even set of acts. If the focus ceases to be about the troll's misdeeds, and becomes more about driving out the troll, then the line from "honest anti-troll work" to "harassment" has probably been crossed. Note that I count seeking a ban of the troll once all other options have been exhausted as still remaining on the "honest" side of the line. ^Thanks, _{Luc "Somethingorother" French} 03:47, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

And how do you establish mens rea from behind the computer? -- Dissident (Talk) 04:15, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

The same way a prosecutor usually establishes "purposefully" under mens rea: circumstantial evidence (and please, read the article I've linked to before you complain that this is a lowering of the burden of proof). ^Thanks, _{Luc "Somethingorother" French} 04:36, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

This demonstrates further the folly of this policy. Wikipedia policy doesn't exist to punish people for a "crime", it exists simply to ensure a proper editing conduct. So bringing over typical criminal law concepts like the mental capacity to "stand trial" makes no sense, as it's about the edits people make and nothing more. Someone's mental state itself doesn't change Wikipedia articles. -- Dissident (Talk) 05:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

The mens rea requirement isn't intended to do anything but prevent good faith efforts from being called harassment. Fair enough? ^Thanks, _{Luc "Somethingorother" French} 05:47, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, my position is clear. The whole accusation of "harassment" has got to go as policies against personal attacks and disruption suffice just fine. -- Dissident (Talk) 06:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Intentions

Lubaf restored the reference to intentions, saying he had explained on talk, but there is no explanation here, so I have deleted it again. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

You see the section right above this one? That's where I listed my objections. ^Thanks, _{Luc "Somethingorother" French} 04:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand what you've written. Can you say precisely how my edit makes anti-troll work difficult, and how including a reference to intentions makes it easier? We can never know someone's intentions. And please stop deleting what I've written. Discuss here and we can find compromise wording. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:28, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Here is the edit you object to: "Harassment is defined as a pattern of disruptive behavior that appears to have the purpose of causing negative emotions in a targeted person or persons, or in a secondary target audience, usually (but not always) for the purpose of intimidating the primary target. The purpose could be to make editing Wikipedia unpleasant for the target, to undermine them, to frighten them, or to encourage them to stop editing entirely."

Which part of that makes anti-troll work harder? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

"Appears to": WHO does it appear to? The subject? If so, almost any troll can claim to have been "harassed". What is the meaning of "in a secondary target audience"? The definition needs to be simple, clear, and concise. ^Thanks, _{Luc "Somethingorother" French} 04:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Lubaf, please stop deleting things and discuss. It's like if there's something on the page even for five minutes that you disagree with, you won't sleep tonight. ;-)

I agree about the importance of not saying anything that might strengthen trolls, but bear in mind that trolls do most of the harassing, so we have to get the balance right. "Appears to" would be "appears to any reasonable person." The "secondary target audience" needs to be worded better: what I meant was that often it is other people who are the secondary targets or target audience e.g. the pursuer is trying to make the primary target look bad in other people's eyes and doesn't really care how the harassment makes the primary target feel. If you can make that clearer, I'd appreciate it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I included "appears to a reasonable, objective observer". As to "secondary audience", please, before you try to reinclude such language, find a better, clearer way to write it. (I would suggest ceasing to try to modify the current sentence to include this sort of behavior, and starting a new one with "An alternate form of harassment...") ^Thanks, _{Luc "Somethingorother" French} 16:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

What is stalking?

I believe this issue is already well addressed by the page, but there does appear to be some disagreement here. See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Blocked_User:Mccready_for_Wikistalking for discussion of whether or not this edit should be considered stalking. Friday (talk) 17:07, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

A single edit can never be stalking. It is a pattern of activity whose goal or outcome is to harass or intimidate another user. -Will Beback 20:02, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid I haven't understood Friday's point in this regard. How could one edit ever be called stalking? Stalking could only ever be identified by a pattern of behavior. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:24, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand either; it has already been explained to Friday that wikistalking is a pattern of behavior. No-one is claiming that that specific edit alone should be considered "stalking"; that, in fact, is a strawman argument. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:35, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Strawman? The block message left on the user talk page was very clear. The edit above was called wikistalking, and wikistalking was given as the reason for the block. Friday (talk) 15:21, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

But, of course, that particular edit was just the last in a long series of edits. No-one is or has suggested that editors be blocked for making just one edit in isolation; that, in fact, is a transparent strawman argument. Rather, people have correctly pointed out that that edit was the culmination of a long campaign of wikistalking and harassment. Also, please desist from bringing up the "decent edit" claim; that, in fact, is a transparent red herring, since the issue is not the quality of the edit itself, but rather the circumstances surrounding it. In fact, in general, please desist from further misrepresenting this situation in any way; it is quite unfair and unpleasantly dishonest. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:36, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

We disagree. This doesn't mean I'm being dishonest. I've been very honest about my opinions on this matter. Friday (talk) 15:41, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Claiming that Mccready was banned for making "just one edit" is dishonest. Characterizing this as being about the quality of that particular edit is dishonest.

Let's look at another situation for a moment; let's say an editor was put on probation by the Arbitration Committee, and banned from editing a specific article. If that editor then went and made an "innocuous" spelling error correction to the article in question, would you be arguing that the person had not violated his probation because the edit itself was "decent"?

How about another situation; let's say a court had put a restraining order on a battering husband, insisting he was not allowed within 200 feet of his wife. Now, let's say he deliberately went within 10 feet of his wife, but did not do anything threatening to her, or even interact with her in any way; she merely saw that he was there (as he intended). Would you be defending him in court, saying that while he had technically violated his restraining order, he shouldn't be punished in any way, because he hadn't actually done anything specifically bad?

Please use common sense, Friday. Think of the effect on the victim, and stop defending the battering husband. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:57, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Good argument. Acts that look quite innocent in isolation can look very different in certain contexts, which is why it's important to be familiar with the context before judging. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I've just stumbled on this sad little tale again. No one ever provided evidence of the claim that I in any way harassed anyone. This was simply and edit war with Slim Virgin refusing to discuss her edits then being backed up by the block from her friend. QED. Mccready 07:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

What is Wikistalking NOT?

For instance, if I detect what appears to be a POV vandal who is going around editing any article which refers to public figure x to call that public figure a name or misrepresent public figure x's views, is it wikistalking for me to use that vandal's contribs page to quickly find and revert all these vandalisms (as long as I do so within the limits of 3RR)? Kasreyn 18:27, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The contributions link exists for a reason. Using it is fine. That said, let's not confused a vandal with a biased editor- they're not the same thing. 3RR does not apply to reverting vandalism. Friday (talk) 19:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikistalking is following an editor with the intent to harass. Good faith editing is not harassment. -Will Beback 20:44, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Question and a plea for help

A user or group of users has repeatedly pasted the contents of my userpage to various articles. I consider this a personal attack since it targets me directly and would seem to "us[e] [my] affiliations [viz Mexican American ethnicity] as a means of dismissing or discrediting [my] views", but the action described does not seem to fit any of the categories of personal attacks, and so seemed to be better classified as harassment. The edits in question are the following: [4] by 64.12.116.70, [5] by 64.12.116.6, [6] by 64.12.117.11. There may be more that I haven't discovered.

Similar vandalism was made to my userpage by 205.188.116.195.

So the question is, does this qualify as harassment? If so, where do I report it? And what can be done about it? Most of the vandals are AOL IPs. Is there positively no way to block them for more than 15 minutes? This is causing me some wiki-stress, and any help would be greatly appreciated.--Rockero 18:09, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

My suggestion: Go to WP:ANI. They should be better able to sort through this than people who just read a policy Talk page. ^Thanks, _{Luc "Somethingorother" French} 05:36, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Dyslexic Agnostic

Hi, I'm an user with a stalker bothering me. The user has:

insulted me (and continues to do so),
vandalized my page 6 times (one recent),
keeps posting in my page even though several times I rerequested him not to do so as I don't post in his,
he reverts or at least edit every single page I edit,
he already admitted ignorance on several topics I edit and he after me (about 30 minutes after I edit each),
he already admitted monitoring me

He has at least touched (most time uncalled for) every single article I create while I refuse to follow him and do the same to him. I want him out of wikipedia. Where should I go, What should I do. Is there a format to present the evidence in a way to show there is no doubt he is stalking me in the same fashion of users previously banned for the same reason? --T-man, the wise 04:55, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Here you have a brief example, out of 11 contribs I made last 20 hours, he followed me to 9. He broke the 3 reverts rule twice, and it's not the first. Everyday is like that to me.

he followed me here, a page where we both have never been before yesterday

--T-man, the wise 02:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

emotions

Question, it says Harassment is defined as a pattern of disruptive behavior that appears to a reasonable and objective observer to have the purpose of causing negative emotions in a targeted person or persons

Well, what if I have no emotional response to harassment like behaviour but it still distracts me? Say I am a Vulcan and do not feel emotions, yet the behavior is still disruptive to me, does it still meet the definition of harassment? Not trying to disprupt things to make a point, just wondering. HighInBC 17:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

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